


All was never well

by mumuinc



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Family Dynamics, Infidelity, M/M, dissolution of marriage, everyone being an asshole to everyone else
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:14:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23370784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mumuinc/pseuds/mumuinc
Summary: Harry Potter's life after the war was... not happy. But he wasn't unhappy either. His marriage of 13 years with Ginny inspired no poetic romance, but that was the way it was when the years of romance morphed into the comfortable, quiet contentment of partnership.He did not expect to rock the boat until he overhears a conversation between his Auror partners and one of Ginny's colleagues.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley
Comments: 7
Kudos: 22





	All was never well

**Author's Note:**

> This story is still in the works but I should be around 2-3 chapters ahead. Chapters will get posted I finish more.

It was supposed to be the tail-end of a much needed week-long holiday from work, but all it had turned out to be was a domestic nightmare of epic proportions.

Ginny had been called away on assignment after Puddlemere United traded Oliver Wood for Roger Davies, and the hubbub surrounding the trade was a right scandal that had even old tongues wagging after Wood was allegedly caught shirt-lifting in an affair with with fellow Chaser, Adrian Pucey, and the rumor mill wouldn’t die down. The salacious details of the two men’s secret romance had been splashed across the front page news publications since the explosive expose two weeks prior. Hermione had remarked one evening after she Flooed to pick up Rose that it was mark of true peacetime era when the front page of the Daily Prophet was nothing more than celebrity gossip. Ron had shuddered about the story over a pint when he and Harry had last caught up on Harry’s last working day before his leave.

Harry didn’t really have an opinion one way or another, although when the Prophet published evidence (and it could hardly be called so, if it was only that Wood and Pucey walked to their local Wizarding gym together on their off days), but Ginny said it was the story that could be the break she needed in kickstarting her sports journalist career, of course, following the player trade, not the alleged affair, and had kissed his cheek and packed her bags and Portkeyed out of the homely cottage that she and Harry shared in Ottery St. Catchpole, leaving him to deal with the mess in the living room that their three children had made tracking dirt and mud after a day playing in the front yard.

That was six days ago. Harry didn’t so much mind that his wife’s work called her out to be away from home often, and he could hardly begrudge her desire to further her career, when in the days before James was born, he’d spent an equal amount of time out in the field, working to bring all the remaining Death Eaters to justice. That wasn’t it, and anyway, he loved his children, and had planned the much deserved vacation around a glorious week of summer spent teaching Jamie how to ride his first broom, and watching over Al and Lily play in the sandbox. This was the life he’d always wanted, wasn’t it? To stand in the doorway, shaded from the bright, mid-morning sun, and watch his kids throw a ruckus as they played, to call them in for biscuits and sweet tea when Al started complaining of Jamie bullying him and Lily by flying rounds just inches over their heads so that the twigs of his boom messed with Al’s hair more than the ruffle caused by the cool summer breeze, to have long-winded arguments with kids who didn’t want to wash up after a long day of playing outside, to tirelessly have to persuade his youngest child that there would be no more milk in a bottle—she was 4 and needed to eat her meals at the table with her brothers, to stop said brothers from flicking peas off their plates at each other while they continued bickering and arguing over Jamie’s flying.

No, it definitely wasn’t that caring for three children round the clock was an exhausting endeavor, even with the few hours of peace and quiet he got when he dropped them off at Molly and Arthur’s to play with their cousins. Yes, sometimes, it most definitely was trying when Al would whinge about his older brother splashing in his bath water, or Jamie talking his younger brother into playing pranks at their toddler sister, or even Lily wailing endlessly after said brothers pulled their pranks. But at least it wasn’t endless mountains of paperwork, and interminable bureaucracy to try to wrangle the Head of the DMLE into granting continuing training to improve their field Aurors. It wasn’t hours, sometimes days out on the field, chasing after another soulless, heartless monster hellbent on causing mischief and mayhem on unsuspecting wizards and Muggles alike. Sometimes, Harry felt like his job at the Ministry was slowly leaching out whatever spark of enjoyment he had of magic and wizardry.

Other times, like now, he wondered if he stayed with the Aurors because it afforded him time away from his family.

He thought, as he watched Jamie ruffle Al and Lily’s sandy brown hair, his green eyes alight with mischief as his two younger siblings railed about his bullying, their brown eyes filling with tears as Jamie taunted them to stop being such _babies_ , if wanting to stay at work, never having gone on this vacation so he could hide away from his thoughts about his wife, and his children, and his family, and the fact that Ginny was out in London and he was here in this tiny lonely house in the middle of nowhere, too far to be seen, but too near to his in-laws to be safely hidden away, if wanting to _hide_ made him a monster.

* * *

Jamie stood at the top of the stairs as Harry quietly put away the leftovers from their dinner of spaghetti and chicken (a meal he never wanted to see ever again once he went back to work), and piled the dishes in the sink for the self-cleaning charms to manage the washing. He was ten now, and at the age when mischief and mayhem was all he cared for apart from his breathless anticipation for the following year when he would finally get his Hogwarts letter, but sometimes, he had these bouts of thoughtful, quiet introspection when he would watch Harry, cleaning up after them at the end of the day. It was those moments that Harry felt most human. Jamie was old enough now to understand that parenting was hard sometimes, with three boisterous children to care for, and the kids were never as rowdy when Ginny was home as when only Harry was there to look after them, but Harry didn’t want to burden his son with having to clean up after his younger siblings, when Jamie was at a stage in life when he should be having fun, instead of doing chores.

“Dad.”

Harry looked up from where he’d finished picking up all of the discarded toys left on the living room carpet. He’d left his wand in the Auror standard issue leather thigh holster, figuring he would be less tempted to Banish the sand-logged toys if he tidied up the Muggle way. Jamie was sat on the top step, already in his pajamas.

“Do you want me to help?”

Harry shook his head no as he dumped Al and Lily’s toys in the toy box behind the worn brown leather sofa. “You’ve already showered, and I can clean this up quickly enough.”

Jamie stood up and padded barefoot down the stairs anyway. “When is mum going to be home?”

Harry scratched his beard. Damn, it was getting unkempt from five days of not trimming; he was always too tired when he performed his evening ablutions and there was never enough time to do so in the morning when he was always waking up at the sound of someone wailing about their sibling. His mind drew a blank as he tried to recall when Ginny said she would be back.

“Soon, maybe next week,” he said, and even to his ears, his voice sounded ragged. Exhausted. It was only seven days, why couldn’t he stand be alone with his children?

“You’re going back to work tomorrow,” Jamie said quietly. To Harry’s ears, it sounded accusing.

He straightened as he Vanished the tiny specks of sand still littering the carpet. He thought about pulling up the copies of the files his partner, who had _not_ gone on leave, had owled him the day before so he could be caught up when he did show up at the Ministry the following day.

“Yeah, don’t worry about it. Your grandma and grandpa would be happy to have you over until I come back to make dinner.” Fuck, just the thought of having to make another spaghetti and chicken dinner made him want to off himself some days.

“Mum’s been away a lot lately.”

Harry blinked. “Your mum’s on assignment this week, squirt. She told you it’s going to be her first big one.”

Jamie shrugged, his narrow ten-year-old shoulders reminding Harry a little too much of how bony he himself had been as a child. “Mum took us to Gran a couple times last week too. And the week before that.”

Harry hadn’t known that. He’d had long days catching up on his paper work on his last week before holiday, and the week before, the kids had always been in bed, and Ginny waiting up for him in the living room when he Flooed home in the evenings.

“Maybe your mum just needed a bit of peace and quiet after a morning with you three,” he teased.

Jamie made a face. “Mum said it’s because Gran used to run a pre-school when she was a kid, and we’d learn a lot more magic with Gran than we would with her. She said being a writer wasn’t very magical work.” He shook his head and looked squarely at Harry, his young face so much like his own, down to the way his brows knotted when he unhappy about something. “It’s not going to be like when Al and Lily were born, would it?”

Harry stopped moving and turned to stare fully at his son. Jamie had been 5 when Al was born, and almost certainly too young to remember that awful blip in Harry’s married life when Ginny had thrown an awful strop the shook the foundations of their little cottage over an offhand comment Harry had made about the fineness of the pale hair Al was growing at six months. Harry had tried very hard to put that memory away in a locked box in his head and thrown away the key, but Ginny’s betrayed, thunderous expression as she pulled the sleeping baby she had just finished nursing off her chest, shoved him to Harry, and disappeared into the Floo. She stayed the The Burrow for six weeks and refused to see her husband. George had had to Floo in when he’d been about on a visit to take his nephew off Harry’s hair so that the baby could continue to nurse with his mother. Jamie had been utterly confused and crying for his mum every night for days on end and it had been all that Harry could take before he’d had to Firecall Molly and ask her if Jamie could stay with Ginny for a while too. A similar event had occurred after Lily’s birth, although Ginny had not disappeared for weeks on end with his children, at least. But she’d been so mad and Harry couldn’t understand why when Lily’s hair was already darkening to a reddish brown, that he’d spent two weeks sleeping in the couch in the den.

He’d been sure that Jamie had been too young to remember either event and it had been so long ago now, and Ginny had simmered down pretty quickly once they got back into talking, that Harry just decided lock those awful memories away and forget they ever happened. It looked like Jamie was the one who never forgot.

He exhaled quietly and forced a smile as he mentally wrestled the memories back in that lockbox and resolved to find some other place in oblivion to throw the key. “Of course not. Your mum wasn’t mad when she left for work, was she?”

Jamie didn’t look convinced by this poor show of nonchalance, but he nodded anyway and started back for the stairs. It was past 11pm. That was just how long it took for him to wrestle his kids into dinner, a shower and into bed. If Ginny were here, she’d have bossed everyone around to clean up after themselves and tucked into their respective rooms by 8. And here Jamie was still lingering outside past his bedtime.

He turned back, just as Harry thought of collapsing on the sofa and relaxing the rest of the evening with a cup of tea, and thinking about nothing at all. “Dad, I’ll make Al and Lily behave better tomorrow.”

Harry smiled. Jamie was always all fun and games all the time, but when he got into these moods, he reminded Harry too much of himself at 10 years old that it was painful. He never wanted his children to have the childhood he’d had.

“It’s alright, Jamie. Al and Lily are just kids.”

Jamie shook his head and made a face. “I’m a kid too, but even I know not to wail like a baby all the time.”

Harry changed his mind, waved his wand and put the kettle out of the fire, and head up the stairs to meet his son at the landing. “That just means you have to stop making them wail all the time,” he said, ruffling Jamie’s hair, black and inky against the back of his hand, just like his own. “It’s late, Jamie, go to bed or you’re not going to grow any taller than me if you miss out on sleep.”

Jamie guffawed and tried to swat his hand away. “You’re not that short. Uncle Ron is just a tree when he’s standing next to you.”

Harry snorted, even though privately, the comment stung in that way that any child’s frank and thoughtless observation often would. “Yeah well, if you have any hope of at least reaching even Percy’s height, that’s not happening of you keep getting out of bed when you should be in it at this time.” He pushed his son gentle towards the room that Jamie shared with Al. “Go on now, and no getting out of bed in the middle of the night. I’m going to stay out in the den for a bit more; I need to prepare for tomorrow.”

Jamie shook his head as he slipped back into his room. “Don’t stay up too late, Dad.”

Harry wished he could follow his advice as he dragged himself to the den and summoned his case files, even though he knew he was just going to stare into the fire and brood and not get anything done. Some nights, things just weren’t going to go his way at all.


End file.
